November 20, 2016

Today I competed in the US Powerlifting Association (USPA) New Mexico state championships in Albuquerque New Mexico . I entered in the masters Super Heavy Weight (SHW) division and the Open SHW division. I weighed in at 142.8k.

First up was the squat. I love the squat. It's my best powerlifting event. I assumed I was stronger than the last time I competed in a powerlifting meet in April because I've been training really hard the last 6 months for olympic style weightlifting. And usually weightlifting transfers over well to powerlifting. Oh boy was I wrong! In warm ups everything felt heavy. When I tried 396 pounds for warm ups I barely got it up. My opening squat for the meet as 418 pounds. It was highly likely that I'd bomb out in the first event! On my first attempt I was able to lift the 418 pounds (190k), but it was close. I went up a few kilos and missed my 2nd and 3rd attempts. But that's ok, with one good lift i was still in the game. And my one squat was actually a state record!!!! I was pretty disappointed to find out my squat has gotten weaker in the last 6 months. I've been training so hard!

The 2nd event was bench press. I hadn't trained bench at all since April, and I was afraid pushing out a max on my first time bench pressing in 6 months would cause an injury, so I successfully lifted a 265lb (120k) bench on my first attempt and stopped there. And amazingly that was a state record! Ha! It's good to be a 40-44 age group SHW. There aren't that many of us left! Victory through attrition!

In olympic style weightlifting I never deadlift heavy. The most i deadlift is a 130k to warm up for clean and jerks. So I started light, 407 (185k). I had a birthday party that I invited a dozen people I've met since moving to Albuquerque so I had to leave after my first deadlift or I'd be late to my party. And believe it or not my one light deadlift was a state record!!

My total of 190/185/120/495 was a state record. I took first place in the 40-44 age group SHW raw division and the open SHW division. That makes me the New Mexico state champion in both of those divisions! It was a good day.

Once I got to the house I was pretty disappointed to see only one of the twelve people I invited showed up to the party. I'm finding it difficult to build a group of friends here in Albuquerque.

November 14, 2016

The last 10 weeks my body weight has gradually decreased. That's a first. My entire life my weight would fluctuate huge amounts in short periods of time. I think that has a lot to do with a few really wonderful things going on in my life right now:

1) I'm only working 40-50 hours a week. From 2006-2016 I worked 80-90 hours a week.

2) I'm sleeping almost 8 hours a night. This is the first time I've had that luxury since 2006!

3) I'm finally on a consistent schedule at work. For the first 5 months of my new career I didn't have a regular schedule. I was on call 24-7. I'd work all hours of day and night. That was harder than I thought it would be. But now I have enough senority to bid on a post. I'll be on this schedule until March when we post bid again.

4) I have a really fantastic sports nutrition coach. He's done a lot of work trying to get me out of my unhealthy habits and replace them with some great ones.

5) I have a world class weightlifting coach. With my new consistent schedule I'm able to be coached by him 3 out of my 4 training sessions a week.

All in all I'd say the last 6 weeks has been wonderful. I'd go as far as to say this has been one of the top two times of my life. I think I could get used to this.

November 13, 2016

In addition to helping me with weight loss and a nutrition plan to continue to make strength gains for weightlifting, my nutrition coach has been trying to help me make lifestyle changes. I never thought that would work. Ever. But miracle of miracles, it has. Finding success with me has probably been one of the most trying and frusting goals of his life. But, by George, it's working. In addition to following his nutrition plan relatively well, I've started doing cardio 3 times a week. Today I did a treadmill tabata:
I did a warm up of 5 minutes, then I ran for 20 seconds on and then 10 seconds off @ a 12% grade at level 4 (15 minute per mile) for 10 rounds (5 minutes). The last 3 rounds I had to slow the pace and grab on to the bar to finish. Next time I think I'll lower the speed to a 3.6 (16:40). At that speed will probably be easy. But I haven't done cardio in years so it's better to start up slowly and build up then to get injured or throw myself into over training. After all, I am 40 years old. My body doesn't respond as well to new things as it used to.

November 05, 2016

I recieved and email from USA Weightlifting telling me my latest weightlifting meet had been entered into thier website. I'd never had that happen before. So I logged on and I found that thier website has been revamped since I was last on there. It seems easier to navigate. I found all my past weightlifting meets results, bodyweight, etc. I thought it might be fun to post all my results here. From here on I'll put all my meets and results at the bottom of every weightlifting meet results that I blog about.

November 04, 2016

Now that my weightlifting meet is done I asked my sports nutrition coach to help me drop weight a little quicker. My calories have been cut drastically. It'll be a challenge. This is what my meals look like today. With only a few exceptions I'm eating mostly meat and vegetables. My quest for the 105k weight class continues.